Sony Bend lays off 30% of their staff (40 people)
- Thread starter Gaiff
- Start date
BennyBlanco
aka IMurRIVAL69
If they are just starting a new game now that means they will be skipping the entire ps5 gen.
FeralEcho
Member
One would hope.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
Should have made Day's Gone 2 that you as a studio voted against causing disgruntled designers to leave, an IP that Sony unironically has been pushing again.
ChorizoPicozo
Member
bend has given too many chances.
Musashipan
Member
Oh noes
Ass of Can Whooping
Member
Weak. If I was in charge i'd have fucked off at least another 20% of them
Ev1L AuRoN
Member
With any luck we will be playing their next project somewhere between the year 2 or 3 of the next gen.
lughnasadh123
Member
Bend? More like Ben Dover. I'll forgive them though once they slip me a copy of DG2.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
So ... 2028 then?
ShaiKhulud1989
Gold Member
This. Maybe some of them will be relocated to another Sony studios too.
Angry_Megalodon
Member
Soon to rebrand as Break Studio.
diffusionx
Gold Member
This studio has gotten insanely mismanaged and mistreated by Sony for years.
Kvally
Member
Loomy
Thinks Microaggressions are Real
Main SIE HQ is never moving back to Japan. They'll move it somewhere in Europe before Japan.
For a brief moment during the start of the RE9 trailer, I thought we were getting another Syphon Filter. Silly me.
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BoxFresh123
Member
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semiconscious
Member
tru dat. but they're not 'starting'. they're 'spinning up' (smh)...
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
So the studio was only about 130 people deep?
Again, should have chosen Day's Gone 2, morons.
Again, should have chosen Day's Gone 2, morons.
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Mibu no ookami
Banned
I remember playing Syphon Filter Dark Mirror and Logan's Shadow on PSP and thinking if this team got a AAA budget and was allowed to make console games the sky was the limit for them.
The next game they made was Uncharted on Vita, which I didn't play because I didn't buy a Vita, but I heard good things.
Then they made Day's Gone which I thought was a mistake, but it sold decently. I think they should have stuck with Syphon Filter given the huge vacuum in that space.
The idea that they were making an original live service IP made zero sense to me. At best they should have taken over TLOU Online or taken over Uncharted on consoles, but at the end of the day, this studio might not be what I thought it was. I agree with
nial
in the sense that they layoffs are probably related to multiplayer developers and this news while disappointing is at least not a studio closure or a significantly larger layoff.
I wonder what their new project will be because I don't see any sense of direction from this studio. I also hope that the same doesn't happen with Bluepoint.
The next game they made was Uncharted on Vita, which I didn't play because I didn't buy a Vita, but I heard good things.
Then they made Day's Gone which I thought was a mistake, but it sold decently. I think they should have stuck with Syphon Filter given the huge vacuum in that space.
The idea that they were making an original live service IP made zero sense to me. At best they should have taken over TLOU Online or taken over Uncharted on consoles, but at the end of the day, this studio might not be what I thought it was. I agree with
nial
in the sense that they layoffs are probably related to multiplayer developers and this news while disappointing is at least not a studio closure or a significantly larger layoff. I wonder what their new project will be because I don't see any sense of direction from this studio. I also hope that the same doesn't happen with Bluepoint.
Perrott
Member
Same mistake Hangar 13 made after Mafia III. They had everything lined up from technology, to gameplay systems and staff, to make a great Mafia IV set in Vegas, but when given the opportunity by 2K, they dumped that concept into the trash to go an pursue a new IP that went from an espionage game set in Berlin during the Cold War, to a superhero music-themed game in modern-day San Francisco and ultimately a cooperative live-service set in the American south with Cthulhu inspirations -- that was cancelled by late 2021. Five wasted years.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
They need to move them out of the overpriced hellholes they're in now.
nial
Member
I like you Deep, but that takes always weirds me out because I can't think of what does that have to do with anything.
Leadership? It was already Western-led in the late Japan years. SIE, ironically, has a Japanese CEO now.
GAAS? 90% of the executive board was Japanese officers when those decisions were made. And Japanese companies are all on board with GAAS, just look at Square Enix or Capcom.
Western studio management? Always been on SCEA/SCEE only, Japanese SCEI had zero involvement on this.
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Mibu no ookami
Banned
None of this is true.
Zacfoldor
Member
That's how you knock Sony off as top dog in the gaming industry. Somehow trick them into fucking with Bluepoint. That would get the juices going as much as anything else they could do to piss their biggest fans off.I remember playing Syphon Filter Dark Mirror and Logan's Shadow on PSP and thinking if this team got a AAA budget and was allowed to make console games the sky was the limit for them.
The next game they made was Uncharted on Vita, which I didn't play because I didn't buy a Vita, but I heard good things.
Then they made Day's Gone which I thought was a mistake, but it sold decently. I think they should have stuck with Syphon Filter given the huge vacuum in that space.
The idea that they were making an original live service IP made zero sense to me. At best they should have taken over TLOU Online or taken over Uncharted on consoles, but at the end of the day, this studio might not be what I thought it was. I agree with
I wonder what their new project will be because I don't see any sense of direction from this studio. I also hope that the same doesn't happen with Bluepoint.
Shifty1897
Member
We'll look back on the PS5 generation as the time of the five billion dollar GaaS mistake and that's why there were barely any first party games. The worst part is that Sony has been rewarded for it over the last 5 years.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
It has a lot to do with leadership, studio and company culture, decisions and regressive hiring practices, censorship, false virtue, etc..
The entire west-coast mind virus infected western gaming that we're starting to see small signs of them climbing out of just a little bit. Most are coming from indies or eastern Europe devs now "healing the industry." As well as Asian territories.
Must have been a coinkydink, of course. That all of this happened post new studio locations and HQs moving to the heart of crazytown.
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Mibu no ookami
Banned
People like to fantasize about Japan solving all of their grievances, even though they don't know who is actually making the decisions in the first place.
The amount of people who used to glaze Shuhei and then he started doing all of these interviews confirming that some of the direction that they hated the most came from him...
I do think Sony needs to invest in Japanese game development, though, starting with Arc System Works.
Bernardougf
Member
This will happen to more studios... bluepoint is probably onother that will skip the rest of the gen
Loomy
Thinks Microaggressions are Real
I'm guessing that comes up every quarter for them. As soon as it makes sense financially they probably will.
I think they will keep it in a primarily English speaking Western region though. I can see them scaling up the UK HQ while scaling down the California one if anything, but as long as most of their developers and consumers are in the US, they'll keep it there.
DirtInUrEye
Member
Oh noes
I didn't get along with the very dull Days Gone experience, but I know it has its many fans. Nah, I just appreciate this dev for Syphon Filter, more than the zombie game they made later. But can you explain your response here, or are you just too much of brainless fucking cretin to do that?